Imagine if you could create a world-class online course on any topic without creating any of its content yourself? It would open up unlimited growth opportunities, right?
Well, that’s precisely why Fiverr exists.
It’s among the world’s top freelance marketplaces where you can hire talented professionals around the world to do any job you want.
In this article, I’ll give you a detailed introduction to Fiverr, how it works, and how you can use it to grow your online course business.
Let’s dive in.
What Is Fiverr and How Does It Work?
Fiverr is a leading freelance marketplace that connects millions of freelancers with business owners worldwide.
You can use Fiverr to build a completely remote online business or outsource some of your business functions to competent professionals at a highly affordable rate anywhere in the world.
Some of the most popular freelance services that business owners regularly hire on Fiverr include website design, content writing, logo, and graphic design, translation, software development, voiceovers, promotional videos, etc.
But there’s no limit to the kind of services you can hire on Fiverr. In fact, some of the most popular Fiverr Gigs (service offers) are in unique niches that you don’t usually think about.
Here’s an example.
In short, you can hire freelancers on Fiverr for almost any kind of online service you want.
This opens up unlimited opportunities for business owners and especially online course creators. No matter what niche you’re in or what topic your course is about, you can find relevant freelancers on Fiverr to help you create your course in no time.
How Is Fiverr Different from Other Freelance Sites?
You’ve probably heard about freelance marketplace sites like Upwork, Freelancer, Guru, etc., that connect freelancers with business owners.
How is Fiverr different from them?
Most other freelance sites follow the conventional job application model where the buyers list their project requirements, and the freelancers apply by pitching their services.
Fiverr has completely flipped this conventional model.
Instead, it follows a Service-as-a-Product model where freelancers/service providers list their services as products, called Fiverr Gigs. The business owners/buyers can search for the relevant Gigs, shortlist the ones they like, and order as many Gigs as they want.
Every Gig page contains its service details, pricing packages, reviews, and delivery timelines.
You can also contact the freelancer and discuss your specific needs before ordering a Gig or placing a custom order.
To order a Gig, you need to pay for it in advance. But Fiverr holds your payment safely till the freelancer delivers the project according to your requirements.
Is Fiverr Only for Outsourcing Cheap And Low-Quality Work?
Established in 2010, Fiverr was initially a freelance site for short and quick tasks that could be done for five dollars. This is where the name “Fiverr” comes from.
Bloggers, marketers, and content creators used to order cheap Fiverr Gigs for services like affiliate articles, logo design, link building, etc.
The quality wasn’t great, but it was worth it for $5 only.
But things have changed over the years and Fiverr is now a much more diverse freelance marketplace with some of the highest quality service providers in the world.
This also reflects in its annual average spending per buyer, which has increased from less than $50 in 2011 to over $220 in 2021.
Fiverr is no longer a freelance marketplace for cheap services only. Instead, businesses are paying top dollar to numerous Fiverr freelancers for world-class services in every niche.
For example, here’s a service provider on Fiverr charging $525 for a 1,500 word article.
If you notice, this Gig has several positive reviews and an order in the queue as well, which means businesses are actively ordering it.
Fiverr even has a dedicated version of its marketplace, called Fiverr Pro, for professionally verified freelancers who’re experts in their domains.
Fiverr Pro Gigs are much more expensive than the regular ones, but they offer you access to verified professionals in their fields who guarantee world-class services.
Similarly, Fiverr has also started specializing in some of its most in-demand niches. For example, it recently acquired ClearVoice, a high-end content marketing services platform, to capture the growing content writing market.
Using ClearVoice, Fiverr now serves B2B clients looking for end-to-end content marketing solutions and organizations actively investing in content creation.
If Fiverr keeps moving in this direction, it might soon acquire similar portal sites in other niches like web design, software development, etc.
I’m not saying you won’t find low-quality Fiverr Gigs anymore (they’re still plenty of that stuff). But unlike in the past, Fiverr has drastically improved and offers world-class service providers as well.
How Fiverr Works | Understanding the Fiverr Business Model
Now that I’ve given you a basic introduction to Fiverr let’s dive into how it works for the different parties involved.
Fiverr is a marketplace site, so it connects businesses/buyers with freelancers/service providers and takes its cut from both parties.
Here’s a simplified explanation of how Fiverr works with a $100 Gig.
When you order a Gig, Fiverr charges you an additional 5.5% of the selling price upfront. For orders under $50, you need to pay an additional $2 per order.
So, if you order a $100 Gig, you pay $105.5. Fiverr makes the rest of the money per Gig from the service providers.
To help you understand how Fiverr works, let me show you how freelancers and businesses use the platform.
How Freelancers Make Money on Fiverr
Let’s wear a freelancer’s hat for a moment and see how you could make money on Fiverr if you were a service provider.
Fiverr is home to over 2.3 million freelancer service providers and professionals offering almost every service under the sun.
This is because selling your services on Fiverr as a freelancer is relatively easy.
Step 1: Create your Fiverr account
Step 2: Configure your profile
Step 3: Create your first Fiverr Gig
And just like that, you’re ready to sell your services on Fiverr.
Unlike Upwork, Fiverr doesn’t allow you to pitch your services directly to a buyer. Instead, your job is to create an attractive Fiverr Gig that describes your service in detail.
To increase your chances of getting found by relevant buyers, you should optimize your Gig by using the relevant keywords in your title and description and adding a descriptive introduction video to build credibility and stand out as a service provider.
You can also price your Gigs in different ways.
For example, you can choose a flat rate for your Gig or create up to three different packages with additional services for different rates.
You can price your packages anywhere between $5 to $995.
Once you publish your Gig, the rest is up to Fiver’s algorithms.
When buyers search for a service on Fiverr, it shows them the best-selling Gigs closest to their search keywords.
The top Gigs in any search result get the bulk of the orders.
If you want to be among the top results, you need to deliver excellent service to your buyers and move up the Fiverr Seller Levels.
Fiverr Seller Levels
Fiverr uses Seller Levels to classify freelancer profiles and rank their Gigs in search results.
New Seller: You start with no seller level when you create a new freelancer account on Fiverr.
This means you can
- Create up to 7 active Gigs
- Add 2 Extra services per Gig ($5, $10, $20 for each Extra)
- Create custom offers (up to $20,000 each)
Level 1 Seller: You move to Seller Level 1 status once you complete your first 10 orders, earn at least $400, and meet several other requirements.
Level 1 Sellers can
- Create up to 10 active Gigs
- Add 4 Extra services per Gig ($5, $10, $20, $40 for each Extra)
- Create custom offers (up to $20,000 each)
Level 2 Seller: You move to Level 2 status after completing 50 orders, earning at least $2000, and meeting several other requirements.
Level 2 Sellers can
- Create up to 20 active Gigs
- Add 5 Extras per Gig ($5, $10, $20, $40, $50 for each Extra)
- Create custom offers (up to $20,000 each)
Top-Rated Seller: This is the highest seller level on Fiverr and opens up tremendous opportunities if you get there. To become a Top Rated Seller, you need to complete 100 orders, earn at least $20,000, and meet several other requirements.
Top Rated Sellers can
- Create up to 30 active Gigs
- Add 6 Extras per Gig ($5, $10, $20, $40, $50, $100 for each Extra)
- Create custom offers (up to $20,000 each)
To view the complete qualification requirements for each seller level, read this Fiverr help document.
Fiverr Pro: This is an exclusive club of service providers manually verified by the Fiverr team. Fiverr Pro freelancers are professionals with years of experience and a proven track record in their industries.
They get additional privileges and usually charge much higher rates than regular sellers.
How Buyers Use Fiverr to Grow Their Business
Time to put the freelancer’s hat away and get back to growing your business as an entrepreneur.
So, how can you hire freelancers on Fiverr to build your business?
Here’s a quick list of steps you need to follow.
Step 1: Sign up for a free account.
Step 2: Search for the services you want.
Step 3: Open the Gigs that interest you.
Step 4: Check the seller’s work samples, reviews, and profile history.
Step 5: Message the seller to discuss your project.
Step 6: Order the Gig by making the payment.
Step 7: Review the project when the seller submits it.
Step 8: If you want changes, request a revision.
Step 9: If you’re happy with the work, accept the project.
Step 10: Leave a review for the seller’s profile.
That’s it.
You can use this process to order multiple Gigs simultaneously and completely outsource your course creation business.
Here are some of the Gigs types you’ll find particularly valuable while creating an online course.
Fiverr Voice-Over
If you have your course content in a document or a PowerPoint presentation and want a professional voice-over artist to record it for your online course, Fiverr Voice Over gigs are a goldmine for you.
You’ll find hundreds of male and female voice-over artists on Fiverr offering services in dozens of different languages. You can even narrow your search to find young or old voice-over artists to meet your content needs.
Fiverr Video Editing
If you’ve not created an online course yet because you don’t know how to edit your videos, Fiverr Video Editing Gigs will solve your problem.
Whether you need basic video editing like trimming or cropping some parts and adding an intro screen, or advanced video editing such as effects and multi-screen, you’ll find top-rated sellers for everything on Fiverr.
Fiverr Content Writing
If you want to create additional reading material for your courses or turn some of your topic ideas into detailed articles, Fiverr’s content writing Gigs will do the job for you.
If you hire a cheap content writer on Fiverr, be prepared to edit and fine-tune the content before adding it to your course because quality is an issue with many Fiverr service providers.
Fiverr Presentation Design
Many course creators hire presentation designers from Fiverr to convert their content into attractive presentations. You can use this service to create branded presentations for your course videos with your voice in the background.
Fiverr Website Development And Design
If you’re launching an online course, you will likely need landing pages and website development services. Again, Fiverr is a great place to find freelancers for these services at affordable rates.
Fiverr Logo Design
Need a cheap logo design? Fiverr is a great place to find logo designers. However, check your logo for originality when a freelancer delivers the work.
Fiverr eLearning and Course Creation | Get Your Complete Online Course Designed On Fiverr
The Fiverr Gigs and services I just mentioned are ideal for you if you’re looking to outsource some of your course content development and management.
But what if you want a complete end-to-end course creation solution? Someone who could take your idea and turn it into an online course?
Fiverr takes care of that as well. In fact, it has a dedicated section for online course creation Gigs.
The course creation section has a range of Gigs that cover the various aspects of online course creation.
For example, you’ll find Gigs for finding a course topic, expanding your idea, creating a complete course outline, or developing specific modules of a course.
Like this Gig, which offers three different packages starting from a basic strategy session to a complete course setup in Kartra.
If you’re looking for a broader range of eLearning services like quizzes for your course, specific lessons, voice-overs, etc., there’s a dedicated Fiverr section for that as well.
It’s quite similar to the online course creation section but includes more Gigs than just content creation and gives you all the necessary services on one page.
Overall, I believe Fiverr is an excellent platform for finding reasonably high-quality freelancers for creating an online course at surprisingly low rates.
However, you’ll need to identify them in a sea of low-quality service providers.
How do you do that? Let me explain in the next section.
How To Use Fiverr to Grow Your Online Course Business
You can easily find freelancers to outsource the various aspects of your online course or hire someone to create a complete course for you from scratch.
However, you must remember the following points while using Fiverr to avoid low-quality sellers and ensure that you find long-term outsourcing partners for your eLearning business.
1. Understand Fiverr’s Terms & Conditions for Buyers
Before creating your buyer profile or ordering a Gig, make sure you understand Fiverr’s policies so that you don’t end up losing your account for violating them.
One of the most common T&C violations by Fiverr buyers is to connect with freelancers outside Fiverr to avoid their fees.
That’s a bad idea.
Fiverr charges a small fee to connect you with the right freelancers and ensure that they deliver the project before releasing the payment. Plus, it helps you explore dozens of other freelancers who can help you grow your business.
If you’re serious about your business, there’s no need to avoid Fiverr buyer fees.
The other common violation is using multiple accounts for the same business. But, again, there’s no need to do that, and it will only get you in trouble with Fiverr’s quality team.
You can read Fiverr’s complete buyer terms & conditions here.
2. Use Different Searches to Find Freelancers
To find relevant freelancers, you’ll need to search for your service on Fiverr’s marketplace. For example, you’ll search for “logo design” if you’re looking for that service.
However, if you don’t find the right Gig for a keyword, try using different variations like “logo designs services,” “brand logo,” website logo,” etc.
This helps you uncover more Gigs and find hidden gems on Fiverr.
3. Focus On Level 1 And 2 Sellers With Great Reviews
Remember the Seller Levels I described earlier in this article? Use them for filtering the Gigs when you’re searching for the right service providers.
From personal experience, I can tell you that it’s best to limit your search to Level 1 and Level 2 sellers only.
Why? Because these sellers have a proven record, a large number of projects under their belt, and are more likely to deliver quality work.
Unlike Top Rated Sellers, Level 1 and Level 2 Sellers are also quite generous with their time and services. For example, they’d often overdeliver to get a positive review and move up the seller level ladder.
You can apply the relevant filters in Fiverr to choose the seller levels you want to target.
If you want a faster response, enable the Online Sellers switch. This would limit your results to sellers who’re currently online and are more likely to respond to your message.
Similarly, if you’re looking for professional quality services at a higher rate, enable the Pro services to switch to limit your results to Fiverr Pro seller only.
And finally, carefully read a Gig’s buyer reviews before ordering it. They tell you a lot about the seller’s work quality.
4. Use This Trick to Filter Sellers
If you can’t find the right Gigs through Fiverr search, you can also use the Post a Request option to publish a public proposal request by the Fiverr seller community.
But here’s a common issue in posting requests – sellers don’t read your requirements carefully.
So, to filter out the sellers who respond to your request without reading it, simply include a secret word in it. For example, ask the applicants to include the word “happy bunny” in their proposal so that you know they’ve read your request carefully.
This simple trick saves you a lot of time and allows you to work with the sellers who understand what you want.
5. Communicate with Sellers Before Ordering
Before ordering a Fiverr Gig, always communicate with the seller through direct messaging. Ask them about their availability, discuss your specific project requirements, and try gauging their expertise level.
This is important because sometimes sellers do not update their Gig status or availability on their Fiverr profiles. If you place an order directly, they might not be able to deliver it on time.
Communicating with the seller is also important to evaluate their past course creation experience. Never work with sellers who have never launched a course themselves. And even if a seller has launched a course previously, check its quality for the specific services you are looking to outsource.
6. Do Trial Runs with Multiple Freelancers Before The Main Order
Here’s another crucial tip.
Never directly outsource your entire project to a freelancer. Instead, do trial runs with all your shortlisted sellers using smaller milestones. For example, if your main project is for the complete voiceover of your course content, outsource one or two paragraphs to your shortlisted sellers to see if they’re the right fit.
7. Save Your Favorite Fiverr Gigs and Stay In Touch
Finding the right sellers on Fiverr takes a lot of time. So, once you find the sellers who meet your quality requirements, save their Gigs to your favorites list for future work.
You can also organize the Gigs in various lists for better management.
8. Be Careful in Handing Your Account Access To A Seller
Sometimes a seller would need your LMS or WordPress website’s access details to provide a service. Be very careful in handling such cases, and never share your main account details.
Instead, create a new user role for the freelancer with sufficient rights to do their job. You can easily do that in WordPress and most online course platforms as well. However, if an LMS doesn’t offer multiple roles, just get the content in a Google Docs file and transfer it to the LMS yourself.
Are You Ready to Use Fiverr For Growing Your Online Course Business?
As I’ve described in this article, Fiverr is a great place to outsource your complete online course to professional freelancers and allows you to focus on selling and marketing your course.
However, Fiverr has many mediocre and low-quality service providers, and finding the right ones can be a challenge, which is why it’s crucial that you follow the tips I’ve shared in this article.
Let me know if you still have any questions about using Fiverr for outsourcing your online course.
I’d love to respond in the comments section.
By Jawad Khan for Learning Revolution
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